Modern data processing systems, such as general purpose computer systems, allow the users to configure these systems in a variety of different ways. This great versatility and flexibility often, however, creates unstable systems which crash or hang or are otherwise rendered unusable. In addition to these problems, users, administrators and technicians face many problems from computer viruses, Ad ware, application bugs, defective or failing hardware, unintended changes by inexperienced users, etc. All of these factors can cause file and configuration corruption leading to a system failure which often results from a problem with the software stored on a data processing system. In many cases, these failures can lead to a computer system being inoperable or so overloaded that they become unusable.
Current solutions to these problems are limited and in many cases can be fairly expensive and may cause data loss. There are certain utilities which are available and which can attempt to repair certain types of problems. Examples of such utilities include “Norton Utilities.” Another example of a current solution frequently employed by computer manufacturers uses a bootable CD to reload the computer to the factory state. This is known to frequently cause data loss and in many cases will reload the computer with out-of-date software. U.S. Pat. No. 6,411,943 describes a technique for providing online backup services and for providing remote anti-viral protection. Other solutions may require a trained computer technician to provide a repair service which could be expensive.